In this second blog on the American Revolution in Virginia, we again turn to the political. Later we will look at its social history in three blogs, and military history in one. The most singular document of the period is certainly the Declaration of Independence, and the process that brought it about is described in “American Scripture”. Jefferson’s Declaration draft was somewhat different than that of the Continental Congress, and “Inventing America” explores those differences.
The native-born Virginia colonial aristocracy arose after 1680, then declined with the onset of the American Revolution as described in “A Topping People”. An exemplar of the Virginian Revolutionary can be found in “Richard Henry Lee of Virginia” who later served as a U.S. Senator to see the Bill of Rights through the Congress of the new Constitution. Loyalists were of variable sorts as outlined in “Tory Insurgents” and those in Virginia are noted in “Loyalism in Revolutionary Virginia” including their practice in the post-Revolution.
See more reviews on Revolutionary Virginia history at our webpage Revolution-Constitution-New Nation. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Virginia history divided by time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
American Scripture
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence was written by Pauline Maier in 1998. Nearly ninety local pronouncements of independence are made in counties and towns, among interest groups and legislatures including Virginia’s prior to the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.
Initially, the first sentence establishing a new constitutional regime was the emphasis, it became necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that had connected them with another. Only later did a preoccupation follow with the philosophical statement that “all men are created equal”.
The Declaration was not a “solo performance” by Jefferson, but an expression of widely held political views including the indictments against King George. The Congress rewrote or cut fully one-forth of Jefferson’s draft submission. Learn more to buy “American Scripture” here for your bookshelf.
Inventing America
Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was written by Garry Wills in 1978 and reprinted in 2002. Wills posits three distinct “Declarations”. One is the Lockean contract of post mid-19th century and modern interpretations, another was the political document of the Continental Congress to further the war effort, and the third was Jefferson’s draft.
Wills argues that the most important intellectual influences on Jefferson’s draft Declaration came from the Scottish enlightenment and an emphasis on the sociability of man. Sections of the book are dedicated to the scientific paper of nature and society, the moral paper of discriminating ethical sense, and the sentimental paper stressing feelings over reason.
Thus with David Hume, Adam Smith and especially Francis Hutcheson, Jefferson’s “pursuit of happiness” was not vague or private, but measurable public safety and prosperity which is the test of every government. Learn more to buy “Inventing America” here for your bookshelf.
A Topping People
A “Topping People”: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, 1680-1790 was written by Emory G. Evans in 2009. He follows the emergence of twenty-one families prominently dominating the royal governor’s Council of State, then charts their decline due to “improvidence and incompetence” through the Revolutionary period, bringing about a new set of economic and political leadership.
Using Governor William Berkeley’s appointive powers in the mid-1600s to garner additional mercantile and county posts that allowed them to control Virginia society and economy. They extended to themselves large landholdings and used primogeniture, entail and intermarriage to ensure continued special treatment.
The families that once gained most of their wealth in commerce increasingly yielded economic control to Scottish factors trading with the expanding Virginia interior, and by the 1730s had become extravagant planters. Governor William Gooch and House of Burgesses Speaker John Randolph shifted power to the lower house under smaller planter control. The families of the Topping People could not sustain their dominance with western land speculation, and these led the Revolution. Learn more to buy “A Topping People” here for your bookshelf.
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: Portrait of an American Revolutionary was written by J. Kent McGaughy in 2004. Lee is presented as a conservative, pragmatic agent in many of the events of the American Revolution and early American republic. Opposing the interests of well-connected planters surrounding Speaker Randolph, Lee sought an independent path of personal financial independence in Northern Neck tobacco cultivation and western lands investments.
Lee’s radical political alliances among New Englanders against the Pennsylvanians and among Virginia’s Piedmont farmers against the Tidewater planters often hinged on securing legislative assistance against his economic competitors. Learn more to buy “Richard Henry Lee of Virginia” here for your bookshelf.
Tory Insurgents
Tory Insurgents: The Loyalist Perception and Other Essays was written by Robert M. Calhoon and Timothy M. Barnes in 2010. Eleven of these sixteen articles were published earlier in a 1989 volume, but here there are updates on modern historiography since then and re-evaluations of the work in light of it.
The “principled” Tory based his opposition on the legal precedents of British empire. The “accommodationist” Tory sought to compromise with Parliament and the King. The “doctrinaire” Tory objected to any rebellion or resistance to British rule at all. These included wealthy merchants, many larger planters, Anglican clergymen, critics of land speculation, and ethnic minorities.
Calhoon and Barnes divide the essays into three sections based on Tory ideas, Tory practice among printers, letter writers and soldiers-in-arms, and Tory practice in Patriot-controlled areas and in the post-Revolutionary era. Learn more to buy “Tory Insurgents” here for your bookshelf.
Loyalism in Revolutionary Virginia
Loyalism in Revolutionary Virginia: The Norfolk Area and the Eastern Shore was written by Adele Hast in 1982. Here she makes a case study of the two centers of Tory loyalism, Norfolk borough, the economic center of the colony, and the two Virginia counties of the Eastern Shore, mad up of small landowners and tenant farmers.
Norfolk’s population was early on divided between native-born Virginians and un-Americanized Scottish merchants who made up the bulk of those Tories emigrating out of Virginia during the Revolution. The Eastern Shore Tories both engaged less in overtly hostile actions, but also shared Whig ideology.
Unlike other Southern colonies, the dissident Tories in Virginia were given mild treatment, perhaps because they were so many in these locales. Often the convicting authorities joined in petitions for Governor leniency. Learn more to buy “Loyalism in Revolutionary Virginia” here for your bookshelf.
See more reviews on Revolutionary Virginia history at our webpage Revolution-Constitution-New Nation. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Virginia history divided by time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.